INTERVIEW WITH THOMAS DONALDSON

by Mike Darwin

Dr. Thomas Donaldson holds a unique and unprecedented position within the cryonics
community; he is universally admired and respected. In any community of strong
willed, opinionated people that is an incredible accomplishment.

In January of 1982 I had the privilege of meeting with Thomas for the first
time during his visit to the United States from Australia. I found him no less
original in person than he is in print. The most startling and delightful things
about Thomas are his insightful and original views on almost any subject you
care to discuss, and his persistent, realistic optimism. I think it is this
last quality that I am most in awe of, and to some extent it shows up well in
a piece he authored for this issue entitled "What Can You Do." Thomas is the
type of man who could sit there and calmly tell you: "Well, I was trapped in
the jungles of Malaysia surrounded by unscalable mountains on all sides, pretty
much cut off from any hope of rescue. So, the first thing I had to do was teach
the natives mining techniques. Then, you see it was just a matter of setting
up forges and within twenty years we had light industry going. At any rate,
to make a long story short I eventually was able to put together a single engine
airplane and fly out of there." I might add that all of this would be related
in the most modest and matter of fact way. And what's more, there wouldn't be
a shred of doubt in your mind that Thomas was telling anything less than the
truth.

Thomas is an incredible man. He holds a doctorate in mathematics and a professorship
at the Australian National University in Canberra. He has traveled extensively;
Mexico, Europe, Japan, and Indonesia. Originally from Kentucky, Thomas relocated
to Australia about eight years ago and has carved out an impressive reputation
for himself in pure mathematics. I stand in awe of his flexibility and openness
to change. In fact, I paid him the highest compliment I've ever paid anyone.
I told him that when he is revived after 100 or 200 years the one thing I could
be sure of is that he wouldn't miss a step. Here then is Dr. Thomas Donaldson
in an interview conducted at Cryovita Laboratories on January 27, 1982.

MD: What are the most important issues confronting cryonics today?

TD: Improving the scientific and cost sides of the operation.

MD: In what ways?

TD: Take insurance, for example -- a lot of it is profit that should be going
to cryonics societies. That's the problem -- it impacts on our ability to recruit
people. With remote standby, for instance, rates should be assessed on the basis
of age and possibility of deanimation. But they aren't, which means basically
that younger people are being asked to pay more than they really should on a
strictly financial basis. These are problems that are not easy to solve. I don't
have any magic answers. A lot of the present cost of cryonics comes from the
fact that so few people are being suspended. Those who are suspended thus have
to pay quite a large sum.

If we want to keep going for a long time we have to pay attention to issues
like this. How can we reduce our costs? How can we best use our own suspension
funds and other economic strengths?

MD: What do you think are the critical scientific areas that we should be investigating
as cryonicists?

TD: Brain freezing. All kinds of brain freezing under all kinds of conditions.
Everything you can do: freeze brains that have been mistreated in a lot of ways;
freeze brains that have been perfectly prepared; examine these preparations
with light and electron microscopy and histochemistry.

MD: What do you feel we should be doing to improve our scientific credibility
and standing?

TD: I've stopped worrying about that. If the cryobiologists want to become
cryonicists they are more than welcome, but I don't see the need for their approval.
As long as cryonics conducts its science honestly, accurately, and with a high
standard, I really don't see how it means anything what cryobiologists have
to say.

MD: What about public credibility?

TD: One of the problems is that public credibility is so poor that if the entire
Society for Cryobiology decided to take on cryonics, the net result would be
that they would waste a lot of money and dissipate a lot of effort and maybe
go out of existence much faster than otherwise. I can't see any other effect
it would have. It might be a good thing because it would probably accelerate
the demise of the Society for Cryobiology. That would be lovely. I don't think
it could hurt cryonicists.

MD: I take it you do not see any great social benefit to society as a whole
or any personal benefit to cryonicists in the continued existence of the Society
for Cryobiology?

TD: I think blood freezing is a good thing. I'm not against people who work
on it. My attitude toward blood freezing is similar to that of an astronomical
engineer toward someone who's busily trying to improve airplanes: it's probably
a good thing, but it has nothing whatever to do with my interests.

MD: Aren't you equating the Society with blood freezers when in fact they are
a very diverse group of people -- insect physiologists, organ preservationists,
and so on?

TD: That's probably true. You asked me, "Have they done good things?" Blood
freezing is one of the good things they have done. But just because an organization
has done good things, that's not sufficient for them to get my support. There
are so many organizations that have done good things that you have to choose.
True, there are people involved with organ freezing which is a good thing; but
they are NOT working with brains and that is what is of supreme importance.

I can remember in the past much debate in cryonics about how to freeze brains.
Of course this debate was not going to be resolved empirically, it was going
to be resolved by debating about the best way to freeze kidneys based
on reports in the literature about attempts to cryopreserve these organs. That
is not the way to learn how to freeze brains. The way to find out how
to freeze brains is to actually freeze them.

MD: Where does your organization in Australia stand now?

TD: There is a viable cryonics enterprise in Australia now. It may not be impressive
or large, but it is viable. There are cryonicists and they have some degree
of organization. I think it may take as long as five years before we are ready
in terms of equipment to freeze someone. It may take as long as ten years before
we actually freeze someone. It is important to remember that the population
is much lower in Australia. So, even if people were as interested in cryonics
as they are in the States, the raw numbers would have to be much lower. Even
with help, it is going to take a long time before we have enough money and expertise
to do a freezing in Australia.

MD: How many of you are there?

TD: There are six people signed up with all arrangements complete. There are
two people who are very interested. But your guess is as good as mine as to
when they will join. When I go back I plan to do some additional promotion and
hopefully get other interested individuals. The media still goes crazy over
there about cryonics, and all that is necessary to get interviews is to send
out a few postcards.

MD: What about California cryonics? Any comments or suggestions?

TD: They could use more legal help. Lawyers are not cheap. I am sorry to say
this, but I think that some of the lawyers in California could probably be of
a great deal more help to cryonics if they would be prepared to work at reduced
rates. After all, their interests are at stake, too. The Detroit people seem
to have a lot of good legal advice. I thought that CI was in a very good position
legally.

MD: Where do you see the big legal deficiencies in the California program?

TD: It isn't so much a deficiency of the program as much as it is an inability
to handle the legal problems that come up. The problem with the Uniform Anatomical
Gift Act is a good example. Further difficulties will arise and they will have
to be worked out. I can guarantee it without specifying what they are. And what
have you got? You've lawyers wanting to be paid for their time -- even though
they are signed up and have suspension arrangements. I understand that everybody
has to put brad on the table, but that attitude is very unfortunate. Michigan
has a couple of lawyers who are prepared to work for free. This is important,
not so much with existing programs, but with respect to threats which arise
which something has to be done about. You get a hemorrhage in finances when
you have to pay a lawyer to do these things. After all, we're not asking them
to do anything more than the rest of us are doing. Look at Jerry Leaf and yourself
for instance.

MD: What about your visit to the Florida group?

TD: They have plenty of money. They seem to be very low on manpower. Particularly
on committed manpower that will spend a significant amount of time on anything.
Of course, the manpower can be bought, but the price of manpower is likely to
be astronomical even compared to the price of a heart-lung machine. They have
a completely different set of problems. I suppose if they were prepared to spend
a great deal of money they could go a long way toward buying their way out of
these problems. I mean a heart-lung machine is a piece of capital equipment
and you buy it, and if you don't use it maybe you can throw a tarpauline over
it and it just sits there. But if you are going to have somebody do something
for you on a regular basis and you want them to be good, you are asking them
to devote a large slice of their life to your concerns and that does not come
cheap.

MD: Why do you think the Florida people have been unwilling to make the commitments
of time and energy that have been made elsewhere?

TD: Well, there are a lot of issues in organizing a cryonics capability which
can only be solved by the application of a great deal of personal attention.
If someone is not willing to devote that attention it is going to be hard for
them to buy it. There are some things that they can't really delegate. Some
very sensitive decisions have to be made. On the other hand I don't feel any
of these groups are near collapsing. It is not a matter of survival.

MD: How do you feel about aging research? Any breakthroughs lately?

TD: I don't foresee any in the near future. The problem is that by the time
any drug is clearly and definitely established as a good workable life- extending
drug to take, you will probably be over 75 and it will not matter in the least
to you personally. The difficulty with these gerontological treatments is that
it really would take a long time to find out if they work. I mean, even if you
have something that would make someone look a lot young, you still have the
problem of what it is going to do to them over a period of 20 years. It could
be dealt with on a long-term basis by finding good ways of assessing physiological
age; but then it is going to take just as long to find an accurate, calibrated
way of assessing physiological age as it is to discover an anti-aging drug and
prove that it works.

MD: So I gather you don't feel gerontology offers much hope for those of us
who are now middle-aged or older.

TD: No, I don't think it even offers much hope for somebody who is in their
20's. I am very in favor of work on gerontology, but I just don't think it can
be responsibly sold as some way to prevent us all from growing old and dying
-- even those of us who are very young.

MD: Are there any gerontological therapies which you feel particularly ripe
for immediate human application?

TD: I am taking Deaner (trade name of dimethylaminoethanol, also know as deanol)
and I'm also taking calcium pantothenate. I really don't think that my word
means much of anything. Anyone contemplating doing this kind of thing is going
to have to look at the literature and decide for themselves. I take GH3 very
seriously. I am not taking it myself, but I think it deserves a great deal of
further investigation. I think L-Dopa is another serious possibility, but there
are a lot of troubles and serious side effects which need to be better quantified.
I am looking at this drug very hard right now.

MD: What about Donner Denckla's work with removing the pituitary glands from
rats in order to find the "death hormone"?

TD: I have problems with Denckla mainly because there is this fellow named
Everett in Australia who has been working with hypophysectomized rats for many
years. He can get apparent rejuvenation of the animals without lifespan extension.
So, I think that what Denckla has done ought to be perused, but I don't think
it is at all clear that it is going to rejuvenate anybody.

MD: Are there any other areas of gerontological research which especially interest
you?

TD: I've seen lots of lip service to the idea of circadian rhythms (biological
clocks) being related to aging, but precious little research. Everybody talks
about the "clock of aging," but the amount of work that has actually been done
to establish any relationship between known circadian clocks and aging rates
is negligible. This ought to be taken more seriously.

MD: What do you feel are the prospects for raising enough money to allow for
some significant "in house" cryonic research?

TD: Significant to whom? Significant to us? If you mean significant to the
world at large, well, I don't think the world in general is going to consider
cryonics significant for quite a long time.

MD: Many people within the cryonics community are very anxious to see cryonicists
do research which results in publishable papers of interest to the general scientific
community. How do you feel about this?

TD: As someone who has actually published papers as a working mathematician,
I must draw a distinction. There is publishable research that is good research
and, while it may be sad, it is quite possible for research to be good and not
publishable. You've seen the sort of problems we've had with the Society for
Cryobiology. I don't think the Society for Cryobiology is going to publish a
paper that is openly cryonicist. I'm sure they would publish papers that were
not openly cryonicist. But that's a problem, because Cryovita and IABS, for
instance, are likely to be considered tainted and therefore unsuitable for publication.

We do want to do good research. But we can't count on seeing even good research
in print in a major journal such as Cryobiology. We like to think of
scientists as being people with open minds, but very often that is not the case.
Over a period of 100 years or so this will probably work itself out, because
I think that good research does win out in the end. In the meantime I really
don't think we should let our judgement about the things that really need to
be done be influenced by the possibility of publication Science or Cryobiology.

MD: What kind of chance do you feel people making cryonic suspension arrangements
today have?

TD: Providing they are quality arrangements, I would guess that it's really
good. Particularly assuming that funding is well provided for -- well over the
minimums. I'm talking about the possibility of being frozen for four hundred
years. In four hundred years you've got a lot of time.

MD: You don't feel that biological problems such as cracking, failure to preserve
ultrastructural information, or other problems which might result from the introduction
of cryoprotective agents will present any insurmountable problems?

TD: I feel those things will be very significant in that they may well determine
how long it is before someone is brought out. I can't prove this, in fact there
is no way to prove this, but my own gut feeling is that -- in terms of preservation
of information -- in a high quality suspension it is there. Now there
are fantastic problems in recovering that information and incorporating it into
a workable human being. But I feel that the information is there. Once you have
that, then the chief problem you have is time. The chief problem with time is
money -- failure of continued suspension.

MD: There is a question which is related to this which has been raised by several
people, namely the issues of low cost, lower technology freezings, such as minimal
or no perfusion, and extended storage on dry ice. What is you opinion of these
alternatives.

TD: All of these things are very different. If I wanted to cut costs, the first
thing I would do would be to have my head frozen. The last thing I would do
would be to have my head frozen. The last thing I would do would be to give
way on the matter of storage temperature. Dry ice storage is definitely something
I would be very uncomfortable with. I would feel very insecure about depending
on the notion that a small number of reactions are likely to proceed to completion
at this temperature and then there would be no change. I would expect that there
is going to be continued change and reactions at that temperature. Based on
the Arhennius equation alone, there are tremendous grounds for concern.

On a percentage basis of the actual funds that need to be available for freezing
and storage, the $20,000 currently being charged for perfusion is negligible.
I think it's silly to argue about this. I think people take these "minimum"
amounts for suspension all too seriously. All these minimums represent is the
absolute, rock bottom price that the procedure can be done for -- regardless
if it is CI's minimums or Trans Time's minimums. The question you have to ask
is, "how will I be cared for if there is a ware or a depression?" You want to
have a lot more money available to the organization which is caring for you.
If they have enough money then they can move you overseas, or they can buy a
nitrogen liquefier to deal with shortages of nitrogen. They are more flexible
and that is definitely the key to long-term survival. Whereas, if you just have
the minimum you'll probably be frozen; but if there is any significant amount
of trouble it is likely that you'll go under.

For those who want to go with CI's $28,000 minimum, I think they should think
very seriously about neuropreservation. Even those who have much larger amounts
of money should open the possibility legally that they can be converted to neuropreservation
if economic necessity calls for it.

MD: Any thoughts on strategy and tactics for us here in the states?

TD: No. The problems you face are obviously difficult ones. I could suggest
lots of things if large amounts of money were available, but we all know that
large amounts of money are not available.

MD: So you don't see some radical new approach as being necessary? I gather
you feel we should just continue to proceed as we have.

TD: I don't believe in dealing with problems as they arise. What I meant is
that all the problems are difficult ones and I don't have any magic answers.
The trouble with dealing with problems before they arise is that it takes a
lot of time and trouble and money -- when it may not seem absolutely necessary.
The trouble with dealing with problems when they arise is that you are not as
likely to be as thoughtful or as thorough in solving them.

MD: Do you feel that provisions should be made for cryonicists to relocate,
both the animate and deanimate ones?

TD: Well, you're talking about forward planning. I can think of lots of things
that would be good to do if somebody would like to do them. The thing is everybody
is swamped already. It would be nice to have some contingency plans worked out
if the legal situation gets much worse.

MD: What would be the prospects for an emergency relocation to Australia? Could
it be done? Would we have problems in moving patients to Australia?

TD: No, I don't think you would have problems. I think you would want to have
lead time. I actually checked into the legality of bringing bodies into Australia,
and if it is done properly and according to procedure it can be done. The one
problem I could foresee is inadequate lead time. I really don't think you could
undertake such a move with 24 hours notice. But if the lead time is there I
foresee no insurmountable problems.

MD: Are we talking about whole body or just neuro patients?

TD: Legally, even moving whole body patients would be entirely tenable; but
obviously if it ever came to that, the practical difficulties in whole body
transport are staggering. I would actually recommend that you only take neuros.
In other words, convert everyone to neuro.

MD: Would there be individuals in Australia who would be willing and able to
act in securing facilities for us and handling legal negotiations on the Australian
side?

TD: Certainly, certainly. There would be people here. One of the advantages
we've got is that our proportion of people who actually are prepared to do something
is much higher than it is in groups in the States. Indeed, with enough forward
planning you could even take a significant amount of equipment of equipment
with you as well.

MD: What about costs? Any ideas?

TD: A fair bit. For a whole body patient on ice it would cost in the vicinity
of $10,000. Obviously, if you're talking about neuropatients you might be able
to transport as many as 10 or 20 in the same volume and weight limits and not
spend any more money. You would probably have to arrange a special container,
especially if you wanted to keep them on LN2 during transport as opposed to
dry ice. If you had enough patients it would probably make sense to charter
an airplane, which could probably be done for $50,000 or so. Of course, if you
are only going to move neuropatients then this would not likely be necessary.
Of course, this is all off the top of my head. Careful planning might quite
possibly reveal other, safer and more efficient ways of going about this.

MD: You have spoken out in the past, at least privately, against rescuing suspension
patients who have exhausted trust funds or have no funding for other reasons.
Could you elaborate on your reasons for this position?

TD: That's complicated. I'm not against rescuing people in general so much
as I am against this particular situation to which I think you are referring.
This situation with BACS patients leaves me with a bad taste. The people who
are being rescued had not joined a cryonics organization. Their son had, but
he had never completed his suspension arrangements. Really, these people were
rather marginal. At some point you just have to put your foot down as to how
far you will go for people who have done nothing for themselves.

MD: What about the benefit to BACS and TT which came as a result of freezing
these patients? What about the benefits that might come in using their plight
as a test case for the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act?

TD: This is a major conflict in my own mind. One of the great advantages that
the California groups have that none of the other groups do -- which is very
important in a way that you only find out when you do it -- is that they have
actually frozen people. So they have had all the problems and all the learning
that goes with that. They have some real bodies there. There's a lot of things
that you can sit there in the corner of your desk and calculate how much it
ought to cost until the sun burns out; but the only way to really find out is
to try it and see what happens. That's important. I wouldn't want to give that
up. It is also true that most of the people who are frozen in California have
made no preparations. It is quite possible that many of these people will be
thawed out eventually due to failure of their finances.

I think that an organization can go into it quite openly and state, "This is
what it will cost to perform a suspension operation. You know that a suspension
operation is useless unless storage takes place indefinitely. We are not altruists
and we do not intend to carry out the storage without payment." But ultimately,
of course, in order to have these test cases, these people have to show up and
they have to be given some kind of service. We have that problem in Australia
in that I would really like for there to be a test case on remote standby. But
someone who has never signed up and never made arrangements -- in other words,
not someone I know!

I guess what I'm saying is that I think our altruism should be limited in that
respect. But then it could also be said that we could limit it too much and
all of the "experimental" subjects we get are going to disappear. If this case
had happened differently I would feel much differently about it. If both of
these people had been suspension members I would feel much more reluctant about
letting them go. Certainly if someone wants to contribute money to this I am
not going to speak against it. On the other hand, I wouldn't want my BACS dues
to go for this. About the best I can say is that I feel uncomfortable about
it.

MD: Any last profound piece of wisdom to offer to other cryonicists out there?

TD: I'm sure that any profound piece of wisdom I might have would seem really
rather stupid in 300 years. So I think it would be better for me to say nothing,
so I don't feel ashamed of myself in 300 years.